Prison chiefs consider turning St Pat’s into jail for sex offenders
The proposal follows statements from Justice Minister Alan Shatter that he intended to close St Patrick’s as a prison for young offenders.
Discussions on what to do with the facility came up during talks between management and staff associations under Croke Park II.
A spokesman for the prison service said: “The review being conducted is about seeing is it feasible to turn St Patrick’s into a place for vulnerable or protection prisoners, such as sex offenders.”
He said the building at St Patrick’s, which is part of the Mountjoy Prison complex, would still be there after the young offenders leave and that it was a matter of establishing the best use for it.
Arbour Hill Prison, which is near Mountjoy, is the State’s dedicated prison for sex offenders, and houses all the clerical child abusers.
Sex offenders are also held in significant numbers at Midlands Prison in Portlaoise and Wheatfield Prison in Dublin.
Prison sources said it would make sense — from logistical, economic, and therapeutic perspectives — to move all sex offenders from those institutions to a dedicated second prison in Dublin.
“The logic is that rather than having logistical difficulties in having different prisons housing sex offenders to put them into St Pats,” said one source.
“There would be economies of scale and you could have a more open regime in one setting.”
Mr Shatter announced his plan to close St Patrick’s for juveniles after the publication of a damning report on the troubled institution by the Inspector of Prisons last October.
Up until then, the plan in relation to St Patrick’s was to remove 16 and 17-year-olds from the institution, which also catered for males aged 18-21.
However, following the report, Mr Shatter said he intended to “introduce primary legislation for the purpose of closing St Patrick’s Institution as a detention centre for offenders aged 21 and under”.
The minister has given no indication yet as to when the legislation will be published or when he intends the young offenders to leave.
The last 16 year-old was removed at the end of last summer and placed in the children’s detention facilities in Oberstown, north Dublin. The last 17- year-old is scheduled to leave in 2014 once the National Children Detention Facility is built at Oberstown.
There are 214 offenders — 179 aged 18-21 and 35 aged 17 — at St Patrick’s. The Irish Penal Reform Trust has argued for interim measures to be put in place for those aged 17 while the facility at Oberstown is being built, given the problems of violence, bullying, drugs and mental distress at St Patrick’s.
It is not yet known where those aged 18-21 will be housed.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
